Life after the den cam
Life after the den cam
March 15, 2010 – 9:42 PM CDT
Thinking about life after the den cam. After Lily and Hope exit, we’ll change the link on bear.org from ‘Lily Den Cam’ to ‘Lily News & Photos.’ We’ll do our best to post updates and new photos of Lily and Hope to both www.bear.org and Lily’s Facebook page throughout the spring and summer.
It won’t end there. This whole experience with the den cam and you was such a pleasure and was so valuable to our research and educational mission that we’ll do everything possible to have a den cam in Lily and Hope’s den this coming winter. We will also do everything possible to have a second den cam in the den of a mother that will give birth. This could be June, her cousin Dot, her cousin Donna, or any of several other bears.
Next time around we will be better prepared. We had no idea the extent to which you would share our interest in the hidden world of bears.
We’ve noticed your recent interest in the NABC webcam now that Ted, Honey, and Lucky are roaming. We’re exploring whether it’s affordable to make it a streaming video cam. Stay tuned.
We wanted to create memorabilia of Lily and Hope but ran into delays that made us fear we’d lose much of the audience before it would be available. For mugs and t-shirts and art prints of Lily and Hope, we commissioned a top artist, a winner of the duck stamp competition, to do a painting of Lily and Hope touching noses. But the artist was delayed, and now it’s getting late. Lily and Hope could exit in 2-3 weeks in this weather. We also considered a picture book of Lily growing up, using her experiences to write captions about how black bears live, but getting it published before the family emerges would be difficult. We learned a lot this year and will do better next year. Maybe we’ll do the book eventually anyway. It will be a good story to illustrate a lot about black bear life.
We’re putting together a DVD of Lily growing up. It will start with Lily as a little cub in the den with her mother June in 2007, show June licking Lily dry outside that den after a warm week flooded the den, June moving Lily and the family to a big, secure white pine, foraging through the summer, wild play among the cubs and with June, nursing and napping, Lily as a yearling with June, and Lily digging a den last fall. We’ll either add subtitles or more likely narrate what they’re doing. Finally, we’ll add some of the best clips from the den cam archives.
We’re looking forward to seeing a lot more of Hope as she becomes more mobile and playful in the next 2-3 weeks. In the absence of siblings to tussle with, we suspect she will play with Lily’s face. We’re looking forward to many behaviors we want to know more about and will discuss as they happen. The best viewing is ahead of us.
Thank you for the surge in mug and mouse pad orders! You’re making a dent.
Thank you again for your contributions. We thankfully watch the thermometer climb and our debt go down. This was unexpected and a major help. It shows your interest in learning and in helping others learn.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center